Publick Nuisance

The secret files of the Ventureverse

I'm back from San Diego Comic Con. Doc, however, is still on a train...somewhere near Chicago at last report. The whole weekend was a resounding handshake, hug and cheer-filled success for Team Venture, and I thank all of you who attended and braved the lines and the wait to shake our hands, hug us and cheer for us.

Doc and I were joined on stage at our standing-room-only panel by Jon Schnepp, Mike Sinterniklaas and James Urbaniak. Among other enticements (a "best calves" contest, an arm wrestling competition, and much dick talk) we showed a 3 minute preview of the upcoming season, quickly cobbled together from a batch of unfinished rough cuts, a little bit of After Effects and a tasty slice of JG Thirlwell's music the night before Doc left town. Nonetheless, it was well received by our captive audience. Hopefully Adult Swim will post it in its entirety some time this week...but I'm sure those guys are busy as hell editing all kinds of footage from the various panels and parties over the weekend.

Tomorrow morning, the insanity begins anew. Even though we've barely begun post-production on the first half of The Venture Bros. Season 4, we start production on the second half of Season 4 at 10am EST, when the entire design department returns from their long hiatus to start making the magic again. It will undoubtedly be a hellish few months ahead, what with editing the first eight episodes while writing and directing the next eight, but I'm really looking forward to it. Honestly, too much down time just doesn't agree with my constitution. But also, getting to see the fruits of our labor in the form of finished animation at the same time as we're working on new ones adds a new layer of excitement to the process and cuts down on that detachment you can sometimes feel from the final product when your lead time is like nine months. And the stuff we've been getting back from Korea this season has been of uniformly higher quality than seasons past. Plus, I think the scripts we're starting with tomorrow are among our strongest so far, and they hint at more excitement to come.

Here's just a taste of what we've been seeing these past couple of months, and what you'll be seeing in a couple more: